This invention relates to a disposable diaper for absorbing and containing body wastes.
It is well known to use an elastically non-stretchable nonwoven fabric or a plastic film as stock materials for top- and backsheets of a disposable diaper and to provide the diaper along peripheral edges of the waist-opening and the leg-openings with elastic members secured under an appropriate tension to the diaper so that gathers may be formed along these peripheral edges as the elastic members contract and thereby ensure a good fit of the diaper around the waist and the legs of the wearer.
The diaper of prior art is normally in its shrinked state under contraction of the elastic members and immediately before the diaper is put on the wearer, much time and trouble are required to stretch the gathers so that the waist-opening as well as the leg-openings may be sufficiently widened to facilitate putting the diaper on the wearer. The diaper of prior art is inconvenient also in that when the diaper put on the wearer it is not necessarily able to follow complex movements and therefore is apt to slip down or to become twisted. This is because the diaper is stretchable only in the direction along which the elastic members extend.
It is an object of this invention to provide a disposable diaper designed so that time and trouble otherwise taken to stretch the gathers in order to put the diaper on the wearer may be eliminated and the diaper may follow movement of the wearer as closely as possible.
According to this invention, there is provided a disposable diaper comprising a topsheet intended to come in contact with the wearer""s skin, a backsheet intended to come in contact with the wearer""s garment and an absorbent core disposed between the topsheet and the backsheet wherein, the diaper has a front waist region, a rear waist region and a crotch region extending between the waist regions so that transversely opposite side edges of the crotch region surround the wearer""s legs, wherein:
the topsheet and the backsheet in the front and rear waist regions are elastically stretchable in a transverse direction of the diaper while the topsheet and the backsheet at the transversely opposite side edges of the crotch region are elastically stretchable in a longitudinal direction of the diaper and in the transverse direction and the topsheet and the backsheet in the remaining regions are elastically stretchable at least in the transverse direction.
The disposable diaper according to the invention has no gathers and facilitates the diaper to be put on the wearer. The diaper according to this invention does not obstruct a movement of the wearer""s legs and crotch region because the regions around the legs as well as the crotch region of the diaper are elastically stretchable longitudinally and transversely of the diaper.